Quotes by Carson McCullers

About Carson McCullers:

Carson McCullers was an American writer of novels, short stories, plays, essays, and poetry. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the U.S. South. Her other novels have similar themes and most are set in the deep South.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It wasn't like she was lonely and in fact – she had understood it all in every way except with her brain. Now she knew that she knew.

Carson McCullers

He did not wholly understand the intricate play of ideas and the complex phrases, but as he read he sensed a strong, who purpose behind the words and he felt that he almost understood.

Carson McCullers

I am not meant to be alone and without you who understands.

Carson McCullers

Doctor Copeland belt old evil anger in him. The words rose inchoately to his throat and he could not speak them. They would listen to the old man. Yet to word the reason they will not attend.

Carson McCullers

The old bitterness came up in him and he did not have time to cogitate and push it down.

Carson McCullers

Because of the insolence of all the white race he was afraid to lose his dignity in friendliness.

Carson McCullers

That was the best of all. To speak the truth and be attended.

Carson McCullers

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart...

Carson McCullers

The thinking mind is best controlled by the imagination.

Carson McCullers

There are all these people here I don't know by sight or by name. And we pass alongside each other and don't have any connection. And they don't know me and I don't know them. And now I'm leaving town and there are all these people I will never know.

Carson McCullers

For fear is a primary source of evil. And when the question "Who am I?" recurs and is unanswered, then fear and frustration project a negative attitude. The bewildered soul can answer only: "Since I do not understand 'Who I am,' I only know what I am...

Carson McCullers

After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self. The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us.

Carson McCullers

The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an person. All people belong to a except me. Not to belong to a makes you too lonesome.

Carson McCullers

They are the we of me.

Carson McCullers

The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.

Carson McCullers

Leonora Penderton feared neither man, beast, nor the devil; God she had never known.

Carson McCullers

The Captain swallowed his capsules and lay down in the dark with pleasant anticipation. This quantity of the drug gave him a unique and voluptuous sensation; it was as though a great dark bird alighted on his chest, looked at him once with fierce, go...

Carson McCullers

The theme is the theme of humiliation, which is the square root of sin, as opposed to the freedom from humiliation, and love, which is the square root of wonderful.

Carson McCullers

The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.

Carson McCullers

I live with the people I create and it has always made my essential loneliness less keen.

Carson McCullers

Author Bio

  • NameCarson McCullers
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornFebruary 19, 1917
  • DiedSeptember 29, 1967
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWoman Of Letters; Novelist; Playwright
  • WorksThe Heart Is A Lonely Hunter; The Member Of The Wedding
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship